• As is now commonplace in the wake of major events or crises, Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc.FB +0.92% have become digital timelines of eyewitness accounts, photos and video from the scenes of the Boston explosions. Topsy, a service that analyzes Twitter posts, showed a spike of more than 1.5 million tweets mentioning the term “Boston” just after 4:30 p.m. ET, about an hour and a half after the explosions happened and news of the incidents had gone viral.

   
• On its Twitter page AT&T Inc.T +0.89% also asked people in the Boston area to “keep non-emergency calls to aminimum,” and to send text messages instead of making phone calls.

• Those working behind the scenes have also opened up a Google Docs spreadsheet to keep track of all the ideas and information coming in from likeminded researchers. Separated into eight tabs, the spreadsheet breaks down recognized Bomb Info, Victim Info, Scene and Evidence Photos, Suspect Information, and four individuals in specific: Mr. Cardigan, the 4Chan Music Man, Bending Over guy, and the two aforementioned "Backpack Bros."
• all the

• The brothers suspected of planting deadly bombs at the Boston Marathon may have gotten their ideas -- and even instructions on how to make explosives from household items -- from an English-language online magazine that Al Qaeda uses to radicalize and recruit Westerners. 
• A U.S. official told Fox News that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, built the bombs with instructions from Inspire magazine -- an English-language online magazine published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. 

• (CBS News) -- As law enforcement agencies investigate Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon -- and ask the public for photos, videos and information that might help find the perpetrators -- some corners of the Internet have launched their own "investigations.

• For years crime tip lines and even television shows have utilized the help of large groups of people, a technique known these days as "crowdsourcing," to aid in police investigations. Shortly after the first episode of "America's Most Wanted" aired in 1988, tips poured in about convicted killer David James Roberts, an FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive, leading to his capture after 20 years on the run.

    
• But crowdsourcing in the Internet age has taken the public's involvement in solving crimes to a new level.
• Looking for help from the public, the department issued a press release with a photograph and description of a piece of metal left at the scene of the crime. Soon, the popular automotive blog Jalopnik picked up the story, and commenters were able to identify the evidence as part of an early 2000s Ford F-150 pick-up.
• "We're in an electronic age, a surveillance society," says Fredericks, who teaches video analysis at the University of Indianapolis and the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va. "Everyone walking around with a cell phone has an opportunity to collect evidence."

• He also warned, "We don't want vigilantes deciding who's guilty or not."

    

• Green Hat Man in center of photo. He's wearing what seems to be a heavily-stuffed backpack. Anyone spot him in any other photos?" asked one Reddit user.

    

  "That guy is walking away from the location of both bombs, they're down the street behind him, about 11 mins before the explosions." Another commenter responds. "So that would mean the backpack he's carrying is highly unlikely to be that in which either of the bombs was secreted."
• It brings a lot of benefits, but also a lot of challenges
• Rumors spread quickly, and inaccurate information.

• Kolb says there have been situations where people are wrongly identified by the public and subjected to scrutiny and harassment despite never having been considered suspects by law enforcement.

    

8 more annotations...

• Crowdsourcing, Reddit, and the Boston Marathon bombing

   

  April 27, 2013 by TARLETON GILLESPIE

   

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  Tuesday’s class will focus on the controversy surrounding the efforts of those on Reddit, 4chan, and Twitter to engage in a public, collaborative effort to analyze images, video and other pieces of digital data to spot suspects, immediately after the bombing at the Boston Marathon.